Baby Love (Baby #2)(32)

“You know Daniel; you can talk to me or you can talk to the authorities. What you don’t want to do though is deal with my husband who is likely finding out just about now where I am.”

He reluctantly opened the door allowing me to step inside the house. It smelled of whiskey and dirty clothes.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, rubbing his unshaven face and looking totally clueless.

"Look - *," I said plainly, "I didn't travel here to listen to your feign ignorance about my mom and what she has been up to these last few weeks…'

He cut me off abruptly either out of stupidity or ignorance because I was going nowhere until I had drained his mind of any information that might help me locate my mother.

"Get the hell out of here, Tylar. I don't know what the hell you are talking about and I don't f*cking care. I don't want you or that slut that raised you in my house. Now get out. I will call the police if you'd like."

"Go ahead," I hissed, daring him to do just that.

"I want them here so that they can question a potential material witness at the very least, and a possible accessory to kidnapping."

I had his attention. I could see that now. He finally managed an expression and there was a hint of fear in it.

"Come on into the kitchen," he invited. "I need some f*cking coffee."

I followed him through the closed in back porch that now looked as if it served as a utility room. There was an old washer and dryer in it, as well as a mound of dirty clothing piled right in front of it. The kitchen opened up right beyond the utility room. I saw a stack of dirty dishes on the counter and in the sink. A ' Mr. Coffee' had some coffee pouring into the pot.

Daniel rinsed out two dirty coffee mugs, pouring himself one and starting to pour one for me.

"No thanks," I said, taking a seat at the small kitchen table.

He poured himself a mug of coffee then came to sit down at the table, taking a heavy gulp of it before he raised his bloodshot eyes to me.

(What the f*ck had happened to him?)

"You're probably wondering why I look like shit?"

"What I'm concerned about Daniel, is where my baby has been taken since my mother abducted her and assaulted my mother-in-law."

"Your baby? I wasn't aware that you had a baby." He said it very matter-of-factly as if it was of no consequence that I had a baby or that this baby had been kidnapped.

"You know," he said, "I was supposed to have a baby, too. I lost mine. Maggie and I loved each other Tylar. I know that you probably don't get that - I know that for me it's hard to understand, but it just happened. It started on our prom night -"

I interrupted him, not willing to relive that drama when more important things needed to be discussed.

"Daniel, I know about all of that. I don't really give a damn. I flew here from Atlanta because my baby - my five month old baby girl - was taken from my husband's and my home while my mother-in-law was interviewing babysitters. I have reason to believe it was my mother that took her and assaulted my mother-in-law. What I want to know is how you are involved?"

"Tylar - I am not involved in any way with what supposedly happened to you and your baby. I haven't seen Maggie for about six months. She and I were living together after she had quit her job and moved here from Radcliff. I was still in school but I needed to be with her. I quit school, got a job in a factory. I thought everything was good. One day I come home from work and she was f*cking gone. No note, nothing. She had taken my Ford Bronco; left that piece of shit Jeep here for me. I didn't hear from her for months. She finally brought her ass back home. She was more than six months pregnant. She said it was mine."

He stopped and got up walking to the counter and picking up a nearly empty pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it. He pulled a dirty dish from the sink, plunking it down on the table to use for an ashtray.

"I do believe the baby was mine. She claimed she had been out and about, trying to earn more money so that our baby would be well taken care of since I had quit college for her. I really believed her. She went into labor a few weeks early here at home. We had no medical insurance. She didn't want me to take her to the hospital. She said women had delivered babies at homes for centuries. She said she would instruct me on what to do. She had read up on it."

He got up from his chair at the table and poured a shot of Jim Beam into his coffee mug, then topped it off with coffee.

"Don't judge me," he commented noticing how I had watched what he had done.

"You have no idea how much pain that woman has caused me."

"Oh, I think that I have a clue," I said sarcastically.

"Please go on."

"I assisted her during labor, helping her with the contractions and following her instructions; she was in a whole lot of pain. At one point, I finally couldn't take her screaming and called the paramedics. By the time they got here and transported her to the hospital, our baby was stillborn. He had strangled on his own umbilical cord. Something that had a doctor been there to deliver would not have been an issue."

"What happened after that?" I prodded.

I needed the whole story; everything that he knew that could help me figures out where the nut job had taken my baby.

“She kinda lost it. She said that that had been her last chance to have a child; that she had always wanted one. She had undergone an abortion years back. A doctor had told her that she would have problems conceiving. She seemed to go off the deep end. She certainly didn’t seem to want me any longer . . . .”